Building a Game, Building a Story

The end of the DEEP SEKH tournament season “The Brave Do Not Fear The Grave” saw some very serious questions raised about the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 system, especially since Fourth Edition had just been announced that August (2007). I’d been following Star Wars Saga Edition and Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords very closely, and made a number of rules speculations about Fourth Edition, many of which would prove accurate.

I reasoned that the magic system would have to be completely overhauled for everything to work properly, and for the magic system to be overhauled, the cosmology needs to be looked at again. After all, what is magic if it isn’t tied into the setting. The magic is sort of an integral part of the game’s setting. With that idea firmly in mind, I realized that I was going to have to build the setting and its magic system from the ground up, and for that to work, I would really need some kind of story.

I arrived at the conclusion that I could kill several birds with one very well-placed stone. I could gain a fan base for and promote the game, gather interested beta testers, and build the setting for the game in one fell swoop. I would create a comic! At the time, I knew there was no way I’d be able to illustrate the comic myself, so I started looking around for publishing houses that took commissions. I met with an independent publisher at Mikomicon 2007 and discussed prices.

Commissioning a comic was way out of my price range. I would have to write it myself, and I would have to save up money, and probably take out a loan. “Okay,” I told myself. “Let’s do that.” I started squirreling away money to put towards the commission, and in the meantime, I started working on the story and continued to develop concepts that would lead into the next big thing in conjunction with the DEEP SEKH tournament: The Revised Core Magic System Project.